SecondLife, Web2.0 and Collaboration

While we were at CEC the topic of remote collaboration came
up.Specifically the benefit of getting a fair amount of the href="http://www.sun.com/service/mgdopservices/index.xml">Sun
Managed Operations team back together in a team building type
(Bar) environment.



From there discussion of virtual communication and similar topics was
broached.  We talked about using AIM,
IRC,
MUD/ href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUSH">MUSH/ href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MOO">MOO and a
couple of related tangents. We then talked about using href="http://secondlife.com/">SecondLife as the
location for collaboration after Jonathan mentioned using it for a
press conference.



The first thing I thought about in this discussion was using a MUSH at
theurgy.digex.net (now defunct) for communication, and some play. I
remember reading href="http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/remy/documents/cncmast.html"
target="_blank">'Collaborative Networked Communication' by
Rémy Evard ( href="http://www.usenix.org/publications/library/proceedings/lisa93/full_papers/evard.txthttp://www.usenix.org/publications/library/proceedings/lisa93/full_papers/evard.txt">Original
ASCII although I must admit that I had to search for it and I
thought it was written be someone else).



The paper gives example usages which I will not repeat here, however
the thought was that having effectively a room in which to talk could
be beneficial in our current environment.  Many managed
operations employees are flex or are not in the main office in
Ashburn.  A couple of times people have attempted to establish
standing AIM chat groups/rooms and IRC channels. None of them has
garnered even small scale adoption.



So the end result here, is that I have created a SecondLife account and
we will try playing around with SecondLife. The next steps to bring
back some of the old theurgy magic would be to create a some objects a
spleen (so you can vent it), some skinheads ( href="http://www.lyricsondemand.com/c/campervanbeethovenlyrics/taketheskinheadsbowlinglyrics.html">to
take bowling), a happy fun ball (to taunt), a tonka truck (to
beep the horn and run into people's ankles) and I may be crossing
servers a game of connect four.



I just don't know that I need the avatar based communication model.
 Location/Room/Channel based communication to allow for better
focus and separation of relevant content makes sense to me, it is just
the rest that I don't think I understand/see the need for the rest of
it.SecondLife appears to have a relatively heavy footprint, when I am
navigating around about 50-75% of my CPU and 250+MB memory.
 This could be another case of buy a new computer, the one you
are using is 4 years old.



Possibly with a bit less friction and a bit more free processing power
it interaction would be a smoother and I would see more of an enabling
technology and less of a drain on my overloaded resources.





In any case Sun is holding a Press conference about just this topic,
I'll be there.



Sun Microsystems To Launch Presence in Virtual World Second Life

 WHO: John Gage, Chief Researcher and VP, Sun Science Office
 Chris Melissinos, Chief Gaming Officer, Sun
 Philip Linden, CEO, Linden Lab
 WHAT: opportunities for experimentation with new forms of 
 communication, collaboration and economic
 activity in the virtual world. 
 WHEN: October 10, 2006. 10 a.m. Pacific Time / 1 p.m. Eastern Time
 HOW: Join Second Life for free at:  href="https://secondlife.com/join">https://secondlife.com/join
 WHERE: In Second Life, go to: "Sun Pavilion"
 Or click the following shortcut link:  href="http://tinyurl.com/m338r">http://tinyurl.com/m338r
 * Note: access to the Sun Pavilion will be restricted prior to the
 event.

Although if it wasn't for a post I randomly saw on href="http://blogs.sun.com/kevinr/entry/sun_in_second_life">Kevin
Roebuck's Blog
I would have no idea about the details of the event.

I do also see the following href="http://blogs.usatoday.com/maney/2006/09/now_there_are_p.html">Kevin
Maney's Blog